room, with its angle perfectly aimed at the bed. He presses record, places a stack of books behind the phone screen, obscuring the light it emits so I won’t notice he’s recording us.
And when I come out? There’s no love left in his eyes. I didn’t see it then. But I see it now.
Tears roll down my cheeks, but they’re not connected to how I feel, they’re just some weird reflex. How can I cry when I’m already empty?
Poppy reaches into her purse and pulls out my copy of Persuasion along with The Sun Also Rises, the one I bought him for Christmas at The Strand along with the note I sent with her to give him, still unopened. “Cyrus came back to the dorm yesterday, and this is all that was left.”
I take the book and letter and turn them over in my hands, feeling something shift. It’s subtle at first, like the feeling you get when you misplace your keys—but I can feel it spreading like cracks in glass, breaking me without changing my shape.
“He did it,” I admit. “There’s no point fighting it any more.”
I’m still the same person I was five minutes ago. Anyone passing by would say as much. But I can feel myself become different. Sadder. More jaded. Trapped all over again. And angry. God, am I angry. I could destroy whole worlds with it. I never let myself feel angry before. Confused? Sure. Upset? Of course. But angry? I couldn’t. That could only exist in a world where Sterling used me like a dirty rag.
I never wanted to live in that world. But I have been living in it for weeks, pretending I was safe. Now I’m in some new afterlife. In just this one shopping area I see three places Sterling and I went together, like tombstones for graves I never want to visit:
Here lies Sterling and Adair. And here. And there.
Will campus be like that? Will Windfall?
“He’s a total knob head. I’m so sorry, Adair.” Poppy places her hand on my arm tenderly, like she’s afraid I’ll flinch. She knows me well.
I wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes, glad I didn’t bother to put on makeup today. “I’m tired of seeing him everywhere I look.”
“Seeing who everywhere you look?” Ava says, plopping into the seat next to me before figuring out the answer to her own question. “Oh. Right.”
She glares at me like I’ve betrayed her. First, carbs, and now, feelings. How dare I?
“Sterling left Valmont,” Poppy announces, probably trying to save me from having to talk about it.
“Without saying goodbye.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to add this detail, but it feels pertinent.
“Seriously?” Ava says, and the corners of her eyes pinch with righteous fury. It’s almost sweet. For her. “What a pig.”
“We should go away somewhere. Spring Break’s coming up.” Poppy starts brainstorming possible getaways, joined eagerly by Ava.
I realize both of them are staring at me, waiting for my input. What were they saying? Something about Miami? “Getting away sounds nice.”
It does, I think. I don’t really know.
I’ve changed a lot in the past seven months. Sterling breathed life into me. But I wonder now if I just needed someone to fill the gaping hole left by my mom’s death. I wanted Sterling to be everything I needed. But now I see that I was lying to myself almost as much as he was lying to me. Not that it excuses what he did. Nothing could. But it still shouldn’t have ended like this. I’d give anything to make Sterling look me in the eye and tell me why he did it. Why did it take him leaving for me to realize what I really needed?
“No, Ava. You’re not listening,” Poppy says with a parent’s long sigh. “I don’t want to be the youngest person for five miles in every direction.”
“Palm Beach is nice. Have you ever been there?” Ava pouts. “And there is always a man ready to buy drinks for you.”
“Just because you’re comfortable dating retired men doesn’t mean Adair and I have to watch. Back me up,” Poppy says, looking at me.
I don’t want anyone to look at me at the moment. I’m not exactly up for getting drunk at a beach while every man who comes by hits on one of us. It doesn’t matter if it’s in South Beach and the man is 25 or Palm Beach and he’s 60. “What about the Keys?”